Because I expect to have the ACL lineup out in about ten days, I have been working my way through the albums in my queue to make sure I don't have any of those stragglers like last year where I was reviewing 9 month old albums in October. We'll see if I can get there or not. But I am definitely excited about the idea of the lineup being right around the corner! Still holding out hope for the old white guy lineup and not the dreck that just hit Lolla!
I mean, that tune underneath it could be an old Waylon tune, just be-boppin' along with the bass striding back and forth under a load of steel. As usual, I think it is a great set of songs. If you want to hear some good new, but also classically styled, country music, then here is your chance.
Mumford & Sons - RUSHMERE. I'm thinking back to the last time these goobers came to ACL, and the extensive discussion I went through about how great their initial albums were and how complete uninteresting their last few have been instead. This keeps up that tradition with an entirely unremarkable collection of songs with no soul or joy in them for me. We were on a road trip this weekend for kid sports, and my wife very much dislikes choosing the music that will play in the car as we drive. So she just grabbed a Spotify mix that was like "Chill Mix" or something, and it ended up being pretty much 99% Mumford and 1% Noah Kahan. After realizing my plight, and after skipping at least 375 songs, I finally just changed the music to be something that the world actually wanted to hear, but it meant that I heard a few of these tunes again in the car (which is a better listening experience than at the desk while working, for sure). They were not redeemed. The album is not actively bad or anything, but I have been through it probably ten times, and I could not tell you a thing about any of these songs. They just sound like Marcus Mumford singing some stuff with a driving, stompy little beat behind him. The title track is the top streamer with 14.4 million.
Truly painful to watch all of those people react on camera to hearing this song for the first time. Just an awful experience to watch them act out while knowing the band is watching. Also, I hate most reality TV, so I'm the wrong audience. But, definitely sounds like Mumford, right? Banjos going wild, a quiet part talking about "beauty in the pain" and then a crescendo to make everyone freak out. That video made this whole album even worse for me. Earlier it had just been a forgettable disc, now I'm actively grossed out by it. More than happy to just delete that disc and move along.
Lucy Dacus - Forever is a Feeling. It may sound funny to praise this album, which sounds very much like prior Dacus discs, after just dumping on Mumford, but it is how my brain is processing these things. I had always thought that Phoebe Bridgers was my favorite out of boygenius, but I think Dacus brings a confessional gravity to her lyrics and a low key voice to the table that draws me in. Also, when the chugging guitars kick in during the last song, it has made me look up from what I am doing each time and exclaim in some way. "Talk" has some grimy guitar chug to it as well, which I like. She does a good job of mixing in heavy and light on here. "Ankles" has a wild juxtaposition of sweet loving ideas and also dominating sexual ideas mixed in, which catches me off guard each time. "Come Out" is clear and good love stuff though. "Ankles" is the top track. 9 million.
Well, that video was wonderfully endearing. The song is catchy as well, even if a little graphic! Sometimes, this makes me think of Father John Misty, where a pretty background is plastered over with strange and wry observations about something mundane - some guy being good at Grand Theft Auto and her shoveling popcorn into her mouth so she won't speak her mind. But sometimes I can't quite parse the lyrics, like on "Forever is a Feeling," where she is singing "this is bliss, this is hell" in the chorus and then singing about cute things like how she knew the shortcut on a drive but let the other person take the scenic route, juxtaposed with less cute things like how her hands are in zip ties and 25-to-life "why not"? Dunno man. I like the disc though, this is good.
Wallows - More. These dudes came to ACL previously, that is how they popped onto my radar. And, of course, the band stars Dylan Minnette as lead singer, who you may recognize as the actor in Prison Break, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, or 13 Reasons Why. The guitarist was also a child actor - Braeden Lemasters - in loads of little roles in ER, Grey's Anatomy, or House, and also films like Easy A and A Christmas Story 2. This is pretty solid rock, but with a little more synth than I want. Like, the second song gets all blissed out with an underlying synth line that sort of makes the song sound juvenile or thrown off. Off-putting to me for some reason. Luckily, that isn't the top song where it would show that the rest of the world digs that action while I'm a doofus. That honor goes to the terribly named "Your New Favorite Song." 5.5 million streams.
Remember when the Arctic Monkeys turned their back on the music that got them there and went all lounge-act? Me too. Also, terrible video. Just about the worst video I can think of. At the end of the day, I'll let this one go.
